As the country grapples with dangerous levels of smog, a Pakistani social enterprise, Pak Fiza, started by four Pakistani alumni from UK universities including Arafat Mir from University College London and Talha J. Pirzada from Oxford University, have set up Pakistan’s first and biggest, 25-feet tall smog-free tower, to solve the smog disaster. The tower will purify 34.5million cubic feet of air per day to 90,000 people.
“Alarmed by how smog is endangering people’s health and lives in my country, I decided to use social innovation to do something tangible to solve the issue. The next 18 months were spent in the labs of Oxford University conducting rigorous R&D and focus group discussions. We came across the smog towers built and installed in Netherlands and those being set up in China and India and wanted to build a similar tower in Pakistan using local materials and at a lower cost, And that is how my obsessively passionate friends and I set out on our journey to set up Pak Fiza,” said Talha J. Pirzada, a Chartered Engineer (IMechE), currently pursuing a PhD in Aerospace Materials from Oxford University.
According to the 2015 findings of the medical journal Lancet, a whopping 22 percent of annual deaths in Pakistan are caused by pollution – or more than 310,00 each year, and the majority of those are due to air pollution. This makes it the leading cause of sickness and death in Pakistan. 5.88% of GDP or $47.8 billion is the estimated economic burden of air pollution in Pakistan. Urgent action on air pollution makes economic sense.
Lahore’s air quality has remained ‘hazardous’ with an air quality reading exceeding 200-300 on most days, according to Air Visual’s Air Quality Index (AQI) list. On October 30, the AQI in the city skyrocketed to above 500, following which Amnesty International issued an urgent action call to the smog issue in Lahore but no emergency measures have been taken as yet.
“We have developed a model which combines both filtration and ionization mechanisms to provide a hybrid solution with maximum efficiency at one-fifth the cost incurred to build smog towers in other countries. The tower is solar powered and will have zero dependency on the national grid. In the absence of any funding, the core team has put in its blood, sweat and tears into the project, often missing meals to save any penny that could be contributed towards building the tower,” said Pirzada.
“To make this project financially sustainable, the tower will be used as an advertising medium. The smog particles collected will be used to make “pencils of hope”, the proceeds from the sale of which will help us in running our awareness raising campaigns on air pollution amongst students,” said Bilal Bin Saqib who has an MSc from London School of Economics in Social Innovation.
Maryam Saeed, Co-Founder at Pak Fiza, who is a rights activist with an MSc in International Development from University of Bath, said that the hazardous level of air quality in Lahore is violating the rights to life and health of citizens. “Clean air is not a luxury but a fundamental human right. Through the green and sustainable technology, coupled with intensive advocacy and awareness raising, we will ensure that Pakistan comes closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 3, 11 and 13 related to overcoming air pollution and smog.”
With an extensive experience in the business field, the CEO of Pak Fiza, Arafat Mir, said that they have patented the technology and are planning to commercialize it in the next six months. “Curbing practices that cause smog is a slow process that can take generations. Currently, the situation is so grave that it requires an urgent, quick, affordable and top-down solution. We are happy with the results that have proved to be tremendously effective and will be soon launching the tower. We can save our country and countless lives of our citizens from the smog disaster before it is too late.”
Pak Fiza Engineering and Technologies is a registered social enterprise in Pakistan. Founded by a group of passionate students of UK universities in 2018, Pak Fiza focuses on providing clean air technologies as a fundamental human right.
